Tag: disorder

During the Summer of 2017, I did a lot of writing. Shortly after I began writing about my faith journey, I was presented with the contract of silence. I stopped writing and even closed down the site where my writing was found, but I saved most of what was written there. When I talk about my experience over the last several years, it is impossible not to talk about the experience of deconstruction. The box of order and this post were two of the most honest things I’d written, so I wanted to share them again before I start talking about reconstruction – or as I like to call it: Diving into heresy.

Almost everyone has opened the box of disorder. Some of us flirt with it many times in our lives but never dare to climb inside. Some of us climb in and never leave, unfortunately. Disorder isn’t an easy place to live. Most people who do climb inside this box react one of two ways: by returning to the order box due to fear, guilt or shame (it happened to me), or by embracing disorder, eventually emerging to enter the box of reorder (this is currently happening to me).

Usually we face the box of disorder because something catastrophic happens in our lives. Illness, loss, tragedy, or a drastic shift in life circumstances can all send our idols of order crashing to the ground. We stop being certain of anything; we aren’t sure where to turn. The box of disorder feels like a carnival fun-house with unlevel floors, distorted mirrors, and hard-to-find exits.

I’ve spent the last few years deep in this box, attuned to terms used to describe the experience: dark night of the soul, backsliding, crisis of faith, falling upward, and my personal favorite, the slippery slope. None of them are particularly appealing, with good reason. In the box of disorder, we are likely to lose our identity, our certainty, some of our friends and possibly the support of our faith community. It’s a messy, bloody process.

Sometimes, the box of disorder starts with a simple question: is that really true? You may have heard this question before. The serpent used it on Eve in the Garden of Eden myth. Did God really say that? Is it really true? The story ends with disastrous consequences, and humanity has avoided the question ever since. It’s easier to simply accept what we are told without question and cling to order in an attempt to avoid pain.

I don’t say this in condemnation, having done it myself. Sometimes the answer to the question is it really true is too big, too terrible, too full of unknown consequences to face. When this happens, we retreat to the box of order. Possibly many, many times, we open the lid of disorder to discover we can’t face what’s inside. So we retreat, again and again, and again, until one day, we simply can’t accept the easy answers anymore.

I believe my descent down the slippery slope began just this way, with one question that created a crack in my order box. I ignored the crack for a long time. But like a scab we can’t stop picking, I never left it entirely alone. Eventually, more cracks appeared. They became harder to hide. My box was splintering, drawing attention. Like Adam and Eve in the garden, the consequences for my defection were swift and terrible. When the dust settled, I mended the box of order as best I could, and climbed back inside as deeply as I could. I stayed there for many years, uncomfortable and unable to forget my questions, but terrified of what the box of disorder held.

Eventually, a series of difficult events created too much tension and discomfort to remain. Glue and duct tape, even my prayers and fears couldn’t hold the box together anymore.

I shattered.

I couldn’t stop asking the question, is it really true, of every belief, rule, relationship, person and experience I knew. This is disorder.

But let’s go back to Adam and Eve a moment. Yes, when faced with the question, ‘is this really true’, they encountered disastrous consequences. However, the more I reflect on this story, the more I realize something very important. Ejection from the Garden of Eden is the best thing for Adam and Eve How often, in wisdom literature, even in nature itself, do we see created beings become stronger, better versions of themselves as a result of distress? We see it in diamonds, gold, marble, trees, flowers even our very own bones.

The more I experience life and the Divine, the more convinced I am the Garden of the creation myth, like the box of order, is a beautiful beginning, but not a place we are meant to stay. If we want to become more in tune with the Divine, we need Her Spirit within us, which isn’t possible in the Garden. We know and love God best when we also experience that which is not God. Inside the Garden, just as in the box of order, there is no choice for us to make.

Disorder does not reduce. It refines. We become more wholly ourselves when we experience doubt, disorder and yes, brokenness.

If we believe, which I do, that Jesus isn’t Plan B, hastily initiated because of our screw-up, then it is true that leaving the Garden and braving the wilderness was always the best possible way for us to become enfleshed Gods and Goddesses ourselves. We didn’t accidentally fall, we were created to fall. In falling we are finally swept up into the exhilarating, awesome, unfathomable grace of the Divine.

Unless we leave the Garden, the box of order, there are ways and faces of God She cannot reveal to us. Her love is so enormous, so all-encompassing that She desires to unfold and unfold and unfold again each and every time we ask, is this really true? But we must find the courage to ask. When at last we do, She will begin to pull down all the false and comforting constructs we only thought were true, one by one.

So we slide down the slippery slope tail-over-tea-kettle, meeting Divinity with every tumble. Looking right and left, we see Her tumbling beside us all the while, and when we finally reach the bottom, if we ever actually do, we also find Her waiting there to catch us in Her wide open arms, wondering why we waited so long to fall.

The box of disorder is the scariest, loneliest, hardest, most beautiful, most miraculous, most invigorating place I’ve ever existed. Like Adam and Eve, I can’t go back to the Garden where order reigns. The way is closed, not as punishment, but as a blessing. The wide world lies open before me, and the Divine inhabits every inch of it, even me.

Is it really true? Yes, but not the rigid ways we have been taught. Life, faith, love, God, meaning, death, loss, grief, pain, all are so much bigger and more beautiful than we ever dared dream when we lived in the Garden.